Sawda bint Zamʿa

Sawda bint Zamʿa was the second wife of Muhammad and regarded as ʾUmm-ul-Muʾmineen (Arabic: أمّ المؤمنين, romanized: ʾumm al-muʾminīn), “Mother of the Believers”.

Early life

Sawdah was born and raised in Mecca in Pre-Islamic Arabia. There is a disagreement as to when she was born. According to one source, when she was married to Muhammad, her age was around 50, other sources claim her age during the marriage to be around 40 to 65 years old, which would only narrow her birthday to around 556-580 CE. Her father, Zamʿah ibn Qays, was from the Banu Amir ibn Lu'ayy clan of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca. Her mother, Al-Shumus bint Qays, was from the Najjar clan of the Khazraj tribe in Madina.

First husband and first Hijra

She married As-Sakran ibn Amr, who was one of the early converts to Islam.

Migration to Abyssinia Sawdah and Sakran emigrated to Abyssinia A few years later they returned to Mecca, where As-Sakran died, and she became a widow for the first time in her life.

Marriage to Muhammad

Soon after Khadija’s death, Muhammad married Sawdah in the same month of Ramadan of the 10th year after the start of his prophethood. Sawdah was hesitant to accept at first, as she already had six children and feared that they would disturb Muhammad. But Muhammad convinced her by saying, “he best women ever to have ridden the backs of camels are the virtuous women of the Quraysh, who are the most affectionate toward small children and the most excellent in doing good to their husbands when they [tomen] are wealthy.”

When Sawdah became old, some time after Muhammad’s marriage to Umm Salama, and Qur'an 4:128–9 was revealed. Other traditions, on the other hand, hold that Muhammad did not truly repudiate her but that she was afraid he would, and it was not repudiation that was being considered in the verse revelation but rather some kind of compromise on the divorce so long as she could remain his wife in name, as in Nikah Misyar marriages.

Later life and death

After the death of Muhammad, Sawdah along with other wives received a gift of money annually from the Caliphate, which she spent on charity. She, ʿAʾisha, Hafsa, and Safiyya always remained very close. Ibn Saʿd puts her date of death to the year 674. After her death, Muʿawiyah I, the reigning first caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, bought her house in Medina for 180,000 dirhams. According to other sources, she died in Medina towards the end of caliph ʿUmar’s reign in 22 AH, 644 CE.